ISRAEL has invaded Syria while it and the United States have launched hundreds of bombing raids over the country in the last few days, the Communist Party warned on Tuesday night.

Israeli ministers openly boast they have destroyed the entire Syrian fleet and are smashing its military infrastructure, aiming at the very least at turning Syria into a limited-sovereignty territory Israel’s armed forces can patrol and bomb at will, Ben Chacko told the party’s political committee.

Yet the longer-term implications could be still more serious, with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on record saying Israel should extend to Damascus and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu boasting he is “reshaping” the Middle East ahead of the inauguration of incoming US president Donald Trump, whose sympathy with the “Greater Israel” project is well known.

Mr Chacko highlighted the hypocrisy of a British government that welcomes the seizure of power in Damascus by a designated jihadist terrorist group previously affiliated to al-Qaida, and has frozen asylum applications from a Syria that is becoming more dangerous as it descends into chaos.

While recognising many Syrians welcome the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the British left should not be duped into backing al-Qaida rebrands or blind to the machinations of imperialist powers dismembering the Syrian state, he argued.

Divisions over Syria are already being used by Nato cheerleaders in a bid to split the peace movement that has shown such unity in mobilising against the Gaza genocide for 14 months, so it is essential we continue to prioritise the plight of the Palestinians and expose the role of the British state in facilitating Israel’s war on their existence, the party warned.